Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm probably being a sour puss, these CSM rules feel off to me. I have a modest CSM army and I don't want to use Dark Pacts. Not because they seem too risky or anything but because they just don't seem very fluffy.

I get the high-concept. Selfish power boost with an edgy price, but what is supposed to actually be happening. The aspiring champion chants a oath as he's actively charging into an enemy squad, and then his squadmate spontaneously combusts while the champion stabs slightly better for two seconds?

"Like a good neighbor, eat Jeff, give me strength!"

well, its more they all start chanting to the dark gods, all get flooded with chaos energy, and Jeff suffers the dark energy version of a drug overdose because it can't hack it anymore while the rest of the squad gets better for a short bit.

Daedalus81 wrote:
The pact is likely mutating models into a gibbering non-functional spawn.

Sure. Spontaneous cataclysmic mutation, spontaneous combustion, spontaneous brain explosions. But all the same, that doesn't really jive with the way CSM are depicted in the novels I've read. I'm sure it's not unheard of, but it seems weird that turning into a pile of combat-incapable spawn flesh is a thing that just abruptly happens to CSM multiple times per battle. Like, CSM generally seem to have trouble recruiting. Killing off their few remaining astartes for a couple seconds of enhanced stabbing feels really, really unsustainable. And I get that this is an abstraction and that it's probably meant to be more rare than it is on the tabletop, but it still doesn't sit right, you know?

A) That is a melee reroll only.
B) Yes, however, consider the issues here. Abaddon can only be protected in a unit - likely only terminators. If you want to have him giving rerolls to hit to your backline you have to buy him AND that unit to do so and then all your objective control goes away.

Moving around as a blob is going to lose you games since your OC needs to be on objectives and not next to Abaddon.

Could he create a bunker? Possibly, but we'll have to see how truly efficient it will be to put what is current at least 500 points to give reroll hits.

Very valid points. Still seem like red flags to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm probably being a sour puss, these CSM rules feel off to me. I have a modest CSM army and I don't want to use Dark Pacts. Not because they seem too risky or anything but because they just don't seem very fluffy.

I get the high-concept. Selfish power boost with an edgy price, but what is supposed to actually be happening. The aspiring champion chants a oath as he's actively charging into an enemy squad, and then his squadmate spontaneously combusts while the champion stabs slightly better for two seconds?

"Like a good neighbor, eat Jeff, give me strength!"

well, its more they all start chanting to the dark gods, all get flooded with chaos energy, and Jeff suffers the dark energy version of a drug overdose because it can't hack it anymore while the rest of the squad gets better for a short bit.

That's easier for me to wrap my head around. It still feels off for the reasons mentioned above. I'm happy for my fellow CSM players that are excited about using these rules. I just don't think they fit the vibe I'm going for with my army. (Ragtag band of astartes that are determined to inconvenience the imperium as much as possible, meaning they need to try and stay alive and functional to bully targets of opportunity.)

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm probably being a sour puss, these CSM rules feel off to me. I have a modest CSM army and I don't want to use Dark Pacts. Not because they seem too risky or anything but because they just don't seem very fluffy.

I get the high-concept. Selfish power boost with an edgy price, but what is supposed to actually be happening. The aspiring champion chants a oath as he's actively charging into an enemy squad, and then his squadmate spontaneously combusts while the champion stabs slightly better for two seconds?

"Like a good neighbor, eat Jeff, give me strength!"

Hopefully one of the other detachment abilities will be more my style.

I'm also slightly cranky about seeing
A.) Another unit with built-in to-wound rerolls. Starting to be a smidge worried about how much lethality was actually reduced this edition.
B.) Abaddon's aura. I thought we had all decided that marines crowding around the buff bubble was bad for the game?

friendly reminder, basic combat weapons for csm got 3 attacks , chainswords got 4...

Sorry. I haven't had my coffee yet, and I'm not following what you mean. How does that relate to my points?

Point A. 4 attacks no iffs or buts is quite high for a troop unit no?

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Sure. Spontaneous cataclysmic mutation, spontaneous combustion, spontaneous brain explosions. But all the same, that doesn't really jive with the way CSM are depicted in the novels I've read. I'm sure it's not unheard of, but it seems weird that turning into a pile of combat-incapable spawn flesh is a thing that just abruptly happens to CSM multiple times per battle. Like, CSM generally seem to have trouble recruiting. Killing off their few remaining astartes for a couple seconds of enhanced stabbing feels really, really unsustainable. And I get that this is an abstraction and that it's probably meant to be more rare than it is on the tabletop, but it still doesn't sit right, you know?

Considering Thousand Sons are now all piles of dust to try and prevent the rampant mutation they were experiencing - it's pretty common even if a book doesn't decide to cover the consequences of seeking power from the chaos gods.

You may recall the 'boon table' for CSM Champs that they used to roll on when they won a challenge?

Very valid points. Still seem like red flags to me.

Ultimately there's a ton of factors that will go into what constitutes less lethal and we won't truly know for another month. The bits and pieces I have seen do make me feel that way. The ones the others seem to be focusing on are melee profiles or profiles of units that were typically underpowered before.

The "you die now" rules are always more extreme than "real life" would make sense.

I guess its a degree of forging your narrative.
So for example I don't find it out of character for Word Bearers. You can easily rope Black Legion into it because they are chaos generic.

For say Creations of Bile you wouldn't take a Dark Pact (there are no gods) but you'd dose yourself with copious stimulants and sometimes they cause people to go pop. Night Lords decide its time to shank one of their squad because they never liked them anyway.

Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors maybe a bit more difficult to justify.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Point A. 4 attacks no iffs or buts is quite high for a troop unit no?

Maybe? Hard to say without more context. But my gripes aren't really about whether or not their rules are powerful; just about feeling off/not fitting the fluff as well as I'd hoped.

Daedalus81 wrote:
Considering Thousand Sons are now all piles of dust to try and prevent the rampant mutation they were experiencing - it's pretty common even if a book doesn't decide to cover the consequences of seeking power from the chaos gods.

If I'm not mistaken, the mutations afflicting the Thousand Sons were an abnormal quirk unique to their legion though. Similar to the Blight for the Emperor's Children or the Red Thirst for the BA. An exception rather than the rule.

You may recall the 'boon table' for CSM Champs that they used to roll on when they won a challenge?

Yeah, but like, the mutations from the boon table stuck around? I didn't love that mechanic either, but it at least made sense that your aspiring champions were picking up permanent(?) supernatural boons over time as they slowly either approached princehood or spawndom. If the buffs from the dark pacts are meant to be mutations, then it feels weird that they go away after a couple of seconds. There's also the issue that some warbands are less melee focused and less chaos-worshippy than others, so this feels weird as an army-wide(?) mechanic.

Willing to have my mind changed when I see it in action, but more worried than excited the way it's presented in the preview.

Ultimately there's a ton of factors that will go into what constitutes less lethal and we won't truly know for another month. The bits and pieces I have seen do make me feel that way. The ones the others seem to be focusing on are melee profiles or profiles of units that were typically underpowered before.

Fair. Still, haven't like... half the unit profiles we've seen so far had rerolls or "crits on 6s" special abilities baked in? I was kind of expecting rules like that to be rare in the coming edition.

Yea I don't think the mechanic works thematically for stuff like Night Lords.

In general I think seeking a pact is more likely to end up in ruin, but it could also be that those afflicted find themselves becoming possessed in a future engagement and are just "disabled" for the current battle.

Just realized the autocannon got quite the jump
S9 and Damage 3. While that's probably due to the tank adjustments, it also seems primed to splatter heavy infantry, bikes and heavy weapon teams quite well.

Not necessarily terminators due to AP1, but Ogryns, Grotesques and things like that, various ork gubbins, and bikes and cav coming out of GSC or Guard.

Voss wrote:
Just realized the autocannon got quite the jump
S9 and Damage 3. While that's probably due to the tank adjustments, it also seems primed to splatter heavy infantry, bikes and heavy weapon teams quite well.

Not necessarily terminators due to AP1, but Ogryns, Grotesques and things like that, various ork gubbins, and bikes and cav coming out of GSC or Guard.

Yea the S9 keeps it light vehicle viable, but also keeps it from dominating T5. I like it.

Another thought -- Heavy Bolters and the Obliterator weapon have Sustained Hits. If we Pact them with Lethal will those exploding 6s also auto-wound? It seems like they won't interact based on the limited wording we have.

Lethal Hits turns Critical Hits into wounds.
Sustained Hits turn Critical Hits into additional hits - not critical hits.

Something to watch out for, anyway.

His Tactical Precision ability grants his subordinates Lethal Hits, a core ability that makes Critical Hits – the new term for an unmodified 6 on a Hit roll – automatically wound their target.

So..... in theory an Aspiring Champion can take 2 Heavy Melee weapons and have 6 S8 attacks?

Lethal Hits does not create Critical Wounds. Nor does Sustained Hits. If they did, it would be in the rules description.

We don’t know enough about the Fight Phase to know how models armed with multiple melee weapons work. I’m thinking it is chooser one weapon and that is all you get to attack with. Not both weapons nor mix and match attacks.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Yea I don't think the mechanic works thematically for stuff like Night Lords.

In general I think seeking a pact is more likely to end up in ruin, but it could also be that those afflicted find themselves becoming possessed in a future engagement and are just "disabled" for the current battle.

That's probably a good way to interpret the fluff. I can sort of see the more chaos-y squads of the warband basically being their own chaplains/dark apostles. If you don't get into melee very often and/or don't feel like you need the extra boost from using a dark pact very often, maybe the downsides end up being more of a once-a-game-at-most phenomenon. Sort of like losing a warp spider to the warp. I guess I can see cult marines and Word Bearers and such doing this.

Still don't love it right now, but maybe it will grow on me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Memnoch wrote:
So..... in theory an Aspiring Champion can take 2 Heavy Melee weapons and have 6 S8 attacks?

Maybe? Did we ever figure out whether melee weapons were an either/or thing? Do you make the full attacks with each melee weapon (like you do with guns), or do you have to pick which melee weapon you're using? (Interesting implications for units that dual-wield.)

It is very likely that each model simply picks one of its available melee options to fight with, with any dual-wield units specced out specifically to have something like "a pair of boneswords" as one weapon. It fits the paradigm and keeps things clear. Also, the core rules could just say that a model armed with multiple melee weapons picks one that it uses and gains +1 attack, rerolls or some other bonus for having multiple options at hand.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Memnoch wrote:
So..... in theory an Aspiring Champion can take 2 Heavy Melee weapons and have 6 S8 attacks?

Maybe? Did we ever figure out whether melee weapons were an either/or thing? Do you make the full attacks with each melee weapon (like you do with guns), or do you have to pick which melee weapon you're using? (Interesting implications for units that dual-wield.)

We simply don't have information on that yet.

'Pick one' seems saner, but its not something they've talked about at all.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm probably being a sour puss, these CSM rules feel off to me. I have a modest CSM army and I don't want to use Dark Pacts. Not because they seem too risky or anything but because they just don't seem very fluffy.

I get the high-concept. Selfish power boost with an edgy price, but what is supposed to actually be happening. The aspiring champion chants a oath as he's actively charging into an enemy squad, and then his squadmate spontaneously combusts while the champion stabs slightly better for two seconds?

"Like a good neighbor, eat Jeff, give me strength!"

Hopefully one of the other detachment abilities will be more my style.

I'm also slightly cranky about seeing
A.) Another unit with built-in to-wound rerolls. Starting to be a smidge worried about how much lethality was actually reduced this edition.
B.) Abaddon's aura. I thought we had all decided that marines crowding around the buff bubble was bad for the game?

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

We already have seen that paired powerfists of Aggressors get twin-linked. I suspect the most likely way 10th will do melee will be pick one weapon to attack with and gain twin-linked if you have two of the same weapon. If they do any sort of buff for having two different melee weapons it likely will be similar, but they may also just decide having the option of different attack forms is the only benefit for such.

Boosykes wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm probably being a sour puss, these CSM rules feel off to me. I have a modest CSM army and I don't want to use Dark Pacts. Not because they seem too risky or anything but because they just don't seem very fluffy.

I get the high-concept. Selfish power boost with an edgy price, but what is supposed to actually be happening. The aspiring champion chants a oath as he's actively charging into an enemy squad, and then his squadmate spontaneously combusts while the champion stabs slightly better for two seconds?

"Like a good neighbor, eat Jeff, give me strength!"

Hopefully one of the other detachment abilities will be more my style.

I'm also slightly cranky about seeing
A.) Another unit with built-in to-wound rerolls. Starting to be a smidge worried about how much lethality was actually reduced this edition.
B.) Abaddon's aura. I thought we had all decided that marines crowding around the buff bubble was bad for the game?

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

Do you believe they haven't just shown the full rule or something? Also Tac marines likely won't have veterans of the long war or have the ability to power up using some warp juju, so they will be better in all probability to their imperial cousins.

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

It... isn't.


Nothing about 'a unit' indicates 'just infantry,' let alone 'only certain infantry'

Chaos has always been about risk for power, and no, that power boost often isn't permanent.

Permanent, low risk (or no risk) power boosts would be a very different setting.

Memnoch wrote:
So..... in theory an Aspiring Champion can take 2 Heavy Melee weapons and have 6 S8 attacks?

Don't know how attack profiles work.

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

To clarify, I don't personally agree that CSM should be stronger than loyalists 1v1. The mutants and the actual old timers probably should be, sure, but that's not every CSM or even the average CSM. Plenty of CSM are relatively newly fallen. Even among the veterans of the long war, they don't necessarily have 10 millennia of experience. Subjectively, they're probably comparable to loyalist veterans in terms of age and experience.

The point I was trying to make was more that the Pacts don't seem to convey any fluff I'm familiar with very well. If they're meant to represent mutations (thus why some of the squad might end up incapacitated), then having the benefits be temporary is weird. If they're meant to represent the squad just sort of getting psyched up or invigorated the chaos gods, then again it feels a little weird to have members of the squad just randomly keel over; that doesn't seem to happen much in the books. If it's meant to be an actual pact/oath/deal being made, then it's either weird that they're making such agreements from turn to turn, or else if the pact is implied to have been made pre-battle, why are they only benefitting and dying from the pact some of the time?

The flavor text makes it sound like they're basically yelling, "Yo Khorne! If you make me good at stabbing stuff, I'll stab these guys right now."
And then Khorne makes them good at stabbing stuff for all of two seconds, and also Steve keels over for some reason. Which is weird, kind of goofy, and not something I remember reading in the fluff.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

To clarify, I don't personally agree that CSM should be stronger than loyalists 1v1. The mutants and the actual old timers probably should be, sure, but that's not every CSM or even the average CSM. Plenty of CSM are relatively newly fallen.

Well if they're newly fallen they should be closer in power and structure to the Loyalist codex then.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

To clarify, I don't personally agree that CSM should be stronger than loyalists 1v1. The mutants and the actual old timers probably should be, sure, but that's not every CSM or even the average CSM. Plenty of CSM are relatively newly fallen.

Well if they're newly fallen they should be closer in power and structure to the Loyalist codex then.

Fair, and you can definitelyl make a case for using loyalist rules to represent the freshly fallen. But that said, not every chaos marine is a mutant who fights with the skill of a chapter master. I think it's fair to say that the CSM codex is generally presented as being meant to represent a wide variety of heretic astartes; not just the guys who were personally participating in the Heresy.

Tyel wrote:
The "you die now" rules are always more extreme than "real life" would make sense.

I guess its a degree of forging your narrative.
So for example I don't find it out of character for Word Bearers. You can easily rope Black Legion into it because they are chaos generic.

For say Creations of Bile you wouldn't take a Dark Pact (there are no gods) but you'd dose yourself with copious stimulants and sometimes they cause people to go pop. Night Lords decide its time to shank one of their squad because they never liked them anyway.

Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors maybe a bit more difficult to justify.

It doesn't even need to be a permanent injury. All it represents is an individual no longer being combat capable. That could be because their brain exploded, but it could also be that they have a sudden compulsion to start collecting and cleaning the skulls of the remaining civilians, they had a vision and are busy inscribing it on their armor in an unknown language or the warband just got a new possessed but they aren't going to be ready to fight until after the battle is over.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

To clarify, I don't personally agree that CSM should be stronger than loyalists 1v1. The mutants and the actual old timers probably should be, sure, but that's not every CSM or even the average CSM. Plenty of CSM are relatively newly fallen.

Well if they're newly fallen they should be closer in power and structure to the Loyalist codex then.

I think it's fair to say that the CSM codex is generally presented as being meant to represent a wide variety of heretic astartes; not just the guys who were personally participating in the Heresy.

And I think this "catch all" is a problem as a whole. Lopping Huron and Crimson Slaughter and other various Chapters out of the CSM codex, and then using the main SM codex with the cool nifty feature of Keywords to switch a few things around, fixes the problem entirely in a few ways:
1. News gets around slowly in the galaxy. That the newly fallen completely lose trading grounds and resources for newer/more complicated tech is silly
2. While the individual is still power hungry, the influence of lead roles in Chapters is key to the structure being more similar. Huron got his Chaoter Master ability when the 9th codex dropped for a reason, and that's because Traitor Chapters simply operate differently than Traitor Legions.
3. Any Traitor Chapter that gets utterly decimated fighting the Imperium is likely going to only have the more elite soldiers left. I've been consistent on saying Legionaires should be equal to Marine Vets in general, so anyone absorbed by a Legion is going to have minimal effect on their fighting style.

Dark Pacts as the core rule for CSMs seems pretty lousy to me. Better that be the special detachment rule for a more "Fanatical Chaos Worshiping" army, something akin to the achetype that could include Word Bearers.

Making Dark Pacts on the fly during a battle also seems very weird. It's more something someone does prior to an engagement, in a big ritual, not in a "Oh no, there's a Land Raider coming over that rise. Umm... oh mighty She'the'rax'ti'cal... grant me a boon... oh no Jimmy exploded!" kinda way. It's too macro a thing to be done on such a micro scale.

Plus I know quite a few people here who love CSMs, but play CSMs that aren't exactly the most Chaos-i-fied groups, certainly when compared to other more-dedicated Legions (Night Lord players spring to mind, and I'd imagine a few Alpha Legion and even Iron Warrior players) and they might have an issue with their core rules being linked to heavy warp-based daemonic shenanigans.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
B.) Abaddon's aura. I thought we had all decided that marines crowding around the buff bubble was bad for the game?

These bubbles seem, so far at least, to be limited to those that really should be leading via their presence. So if Bobby G and Dooby have auras, that makes sense to me, as they're larger than life figures that people can literally look at for inspiration and leadership. The "lesser" leaders are the ones that lead individual squads, so they don't have great spanning auras.

I think it's a good compromise that will work well as long as these major heroes aren't the only ones with auras. I'd hate to see things like Ancients and other standard bearer types suddenly need to be part of squads to have an effect.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Boosykes wrote:

I agree with you 100% chaos should be better than loyalists in a one to one fight. Plain and simple most of these guys have been fighting for a very long time and have been boosted by litteral gods.

Who ever heard of chaos being temperory? Are they trying to for shadow coming back from the dark side... I mean chaos? This rule dosent make sense and equally bad it's just not at all very strong. Watch it be restricted to only certain infantry.

To clarify, I don't personally agree that CSM should be stronger than loyalists 1v1. The mutants and the actual old timers probably should be, sure, but that's not every CSM or even the average CSM. Plenty of CSM are relatively newly fallen.

Well if they're newly fallen they should be closer in power and structure to the Loyalist codex then.

This. Paint them however you want but marines with spikes on them shouldent be a diffrent codex they should be a painting / modeling endeavor.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Yea I don't think the mechanic works thematically for stuff like Night Lords.

Eh, the idea that the Night Lords don't venerate the Chaos Gods on some level is overstated.

Yeah they all should worship Chaos.

It’s only recent lore that’s tried to insist that Black Legion, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Night Lords; they’re just using Chaos for their own ends. Half the traitor legions BTW. Basically they don’t like the idea of the villains not being their own men and being pawns of the Chaos Gods. Same reason Archaon is always set up as challenging the Chaos Gods even though he never acts against their interests. So it’s a false conflict just to make the villain seem badass for “defying” the Gods.

Also, I really want to hear the bull explanation for how Perturabo isn’t chaos when he’s a Daemon Primarch on a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror. They’ve really been pushing that in HH and Siege of Terra that he’s his own man.

Daedalus81 wrote:Yea I don't think the mechanic works thematically for stuff like Night Lords.

Careful Daed. That sort of statement sometimes makes some people "cranky". Trust me, I know.

Totalwar1402 wrote:Yeah they all should worship Chaos.

It’s only recent lore that’s tried to insist that Black Legion, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Night Lords; they’re just using Chaos for their own ends. Half the traitor legions BTW. Basically they don’t like the idea of the villains not being their own men and being pawns of the Chaos Gods. Same reason Archaon is always set up as challenging the Chaos Gods even though he never acts against their interests. So it’s a false conflict just to make the villain seem badass for “defying” the Gods.

Also, I really want to hear the bull explanation for how Perturabo isn’t chaos when he’s a Daemon Primarch on a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror. They’ve really been pushing that in HH and Siege of Terra that he’s his own man.

The 2nd edition Chaos codex (published in 1996) is "recent"? Huh, interesting take.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:Yea I don't think the mechanic works thematically for stuff like Night Lords.

Careful Daed. That sort of statement sometimes makes some people "cranky". Trust me, I know.

Totalwar1402 wrote:Yeah they all should worship Chaos.

It’s only recent lore that’s tried to insist that Black Legion, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Night Lords; they’re just using Chaos for their own ends. Half the traitor legions BTW. Basically they don’t like the idea of the villains not being their own men and being pawns of the Chaos Gods. Same reason Archaon is always set up as challenging the Chaos Gods even though he never acts against their interests. So it’s a false conflict just to make the villain seem badass for “defying” the Gods.

Also, I really want to hear the bull explanation for how Perturabo isn’t chaos when he’s a Daemon Primarch on a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror. They’ve really been pushing that in HH and Siege of Terra that he’s his own man.

The 2nd edition Chaos codex (published in 1996) is "recent"? Huh, interesting take.

3rd edition is proper 40k.

My point stands, the only reason they do that for half the legions is to make the villains seem badass for “defying” the Gods. Even though they pray to the Dark Gods, do their rituals, take their weapons and blessings etc etc. All the while going along with the Chaos plan to enslave and exterminate humanity. You know, really pushing back against the will of the gods.

You could just as easily write that Chaos is like the Ring of Power or the Dark Side and corrupts the wielder regardless of their pretensions. But no, that would undermine the badass nature of the villains if you had the Alpha Legion think they’re being clever tricking the eldritch and getting consumed by it. Or Iron Warriors not all being consumed by the Obliterator virus because of their hubris. But no, the Iron Warriors and Perturabo are clever and can use the power of chaos without any problems.

It’s bad story telling and it undermines Chaos as this all corrupting eldritch horror. How can Nurgle instantly corrupt all the Death Guard in a random warp storm but the Night Lords and Alpha Legion can give him the middle finger? Angron has a virus that makes marines instantly go mad with blood rage. You can’t have stuff like that and yet Alpha Legion can handwave chaos corruption because reasons.